Very food sensitive pony!

[EternalVetBills]

My mums little pony has always been extremely sensitive to certain ingredients in his feed. He has a list of allergies as long as my arm and then has extreme behaviour reactions to certain feedstuffs aswell.

For the past 5ish years he has been on Pure and that has worked absolutely brilliantly. However, due to the recent issues within the company, it has obviously become quite hard to get ahold of, and I haven't been overly impressed with the way they've treated my local feed merchants so will be reluctant to return to them unless I absolutely have to.

We managed to find a mix of feed for the pony that we felt matched what was in his old feed really well. Unfortunately we started having the behavioural issues crop up again (rearing, bucking, being extremely touchy, biting) and you could just tell he wasn't happy. After a process of elimination we managed to narrow it down to the chaff, which is this: https://www.honeychop.com/product/honeychop-lite-healthy/

Now, wise people of HHO, please tell me what could possibly be in that chaff that would cause such a reaction? As far as I can see it doesn't contain any of his allergens, my vet even glanced at it for me and said she couldn't see why it should be an issue. He gets a small half of a big round scoop split between 2 feeds a day (although he's not getting any now!)
Now that I think of it, he was on this chaff before we started on the Pure and we had these issues then, but I genuinely can't see what would cause it? It's not the end of the world if he doesn't get to have chaff, but he does have a history of ulcers so my mum does like him to have something like that, obviously she would rather have a happy pony though!

So what do people think? Am I missing something? Is there something in there that sends little 13.2, fat, coloured cobs mad?

 

[cauda equina]

I have heard of horses reacting to linseed; I don't know if the oil could cause problems too rather than the whole seeds

 

[EternalVetBills]

I have heard of horses reacting to linseed; I don't know if the oil could cause problems too rather than the whole seeds

Thank you, I'd heard that too, but I believe his old feed had linseed in too and he was fine on that. It's hard to know though as I think the new owners at Pure have changed the ingredients so I can't check.
I think I gave my grandma a bag of his feed filled with some muck off of the muckheap though, so I might see if she still has it so I can compare.

ETA: It says on Pures website that the feed he was on contains linseed, but whether it was there before I don't know ?‍
https://www.purefeed.com/product/pure-fibre-balance/

 

[Nasicus]

Thank you, I'd heard that too, but I believe his old feed had linseed in too and he was fine on that. It's hard to know though as I think the new owners at Pure have changed the ingredients so I can't check.
I think I gave my grandma a bag of his feed filled with some muck off of the muckheap though, so I might see if she still has it so I can compare.

ETA: It says on Pures website that the feed he was on contains linseed, but whether it was there before I don't know ?‍
https://www.purefeed.com/product/pure-fibre-balance/

I used to feed that ages ago and I'm certain it had linseed then.
Could it be the oils? They're a lot more available/easily digested than linseed meal, so perhaps he's reacting to that?

 

[EternalVetBills]

I used to feed that ages ago and I'm certain it had linseed then.
Could it be the oils? They're a lot more available/easily digested than linseed meal, so perhaps he's reacting to that?

It definitely could be. I've never had one that reacts so severely to this sort of stuff before so I'll be 100% honest and say it's not entirely in my comfort zone! It's why I liked Pure because he just had that bag, or the Easy if he was out competing, and I didn't have to think about it ?

 

[rextherobber]

I also have a feed reactive horse and I used to feed Pure feeds. During the recent difficulties the company had, I also changed to Honeychop lite & healthy. My horse is actually much improved on it, which makes me think he was reactive to soya. Could you horse be missing the soya? I've added Simple Systems Sainfoin Pellets as the protein in my horse's new diet, could your boy maybe need more protein? I'm seriously considering using Clare McLeod, as I am struggling with finding a balancer without soya or alfalfa in.

 

[cauda equina]

On these sort of threads I always big up Simple Systems Haycare which is Timothy nuts, but SS also do a Timothy chop with no additives

 

[EternalVetBills]

I also have a feed reactive horse and I used to feed Pure feeds. During the recent difficulties the company had, I also changed to Honeychop lite & healthy. My horse is actually much improved on it, which makes me think he was reactive to soya. Could you horse be missing the soya? I've added Simple Systems Sainfoin Pellets as the protein in my horse's new diet, could your boy maybe need more protein? I'm seriously considering using Clare McLeod, as I am struggling with finding a balancer without soya or alfalfa in.

Hmm, I don't think he's missing anything as he is back to his old self within literally two days of cutting out the chaff. So I definitely think it's something in the chaff as nothing else has changed.

 

[EternalVetBills]

On these sort of threads I always big up Simple Systems Haycare which is Timothy nuts, but SS also do a Timothy chop with no additives

Thank you, I hadn't thought about Simple Systems. I will have a look. My other thought was to give him a sort of ready grass type chaff, but I'm not sure feeding a little good doing cob more grass is the way to go!

 

[SEL]

Could be the one or other of the herbs if he's particularly sensitive. Malcolm from Equifeast is always telling people to go right back to basics with food issues including stripping out herbs. I don't agree with everything Malcolm says but I do agree with that!

 

[cauda equina]

Thank you, I hadn't thought about Simple Systems. I will have a look. My other thought was to give him a sort of ready grass type chaff, but I'm not sure feeding a little good doing cob more grass is the way to go!

The SS Timothy products are very low sugar and starch
Mine get Haycare instead of chaff to put their supplements in, roughly a couple of mugfuls a day and it soaks to a tasty mash

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

We usually feed Honeychop plain oat straw chaff but when there were supply problems we tried Lite &Healthy. We soon stopped. It sent them both loopy. We didn't bother to try to work out why but we have just had a problem with linseed, which we have also stopped.

 

[EternalVetBills]

Could be the one or other of the herbs if he's particularly sensitive. Malcolm from Equifeast is always telling people to go right back to basics with food issues including stripping out herbs. I don't agree with everything Malcolm says but I do agree with that!

I definitely would agree with that SEL. The only herb that I know he isn't reactive to in there is the marigold as he has cleavers and marigold added into his feed for one of his skin conditions (who said cobs were supposed to be hardy ?), but the others I don't have any points of reference for so he definitely could be reacting to them.

We usually feed Joneychop plain oat straw chaff but when there were supply problems we tried Lite &Healthy. We soon stopped. It sent them both loopy. We didn't bother to try to work out why but we have just had a problem with linseed, which we have also stopped.

I'm glad it's not just him then! I have all of mine (bar this one obviously!) on either the Senior or the Calm & Shine from Honeychop now and they're all doing really well on it. It was just mum's little demon pony that had a problem.
Interesting that you've had problems with linseed too. I have some linseed oil that I don't use, do we think it would be really mean to do a little experiment on him? I have absolutely no reason that I NEED to know, but I just think it would be interesting to pinpoint what exactly it is

 

[WelshD]

It could be the linseed, I had a pony sensitive to that but it could also be the oat straw - I have had a couple of ponies who got irritated by lots of straw in chaffs, I think it was the texture of it rather than nutritionally

Try Halleys timothy chop which is softer

 

[KittenInTheTree]

One of mine took a very nasty reaction to Lite & Healthy, and broke out in welts. In her case it was the cinnamon.

 

[EternalVetBills]

It could be the linseed, I had a pony sensitive to that but it could also be the oat straw - I have had a couple of ponies who got irritated by lots of straw in chaffs, I think it was the texture of it rather than nutritionally

Try Halleys timothy chop which is softer

Thank you, I will look at that one aswell